


Binding

by astolat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-13
Updated: 2007-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:00:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No way had Bobby pulled out some pair of real mystical amulets from nowhere and handed them over like crackerjack prizes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Binding

**Author's Note:**

> post-episode for _Born Under A Bad Sign_.

  
[Main Fanfic Site](http://intimations.org/fanfic/)

Note: post-episode for _Born Under A Bad Sign_.

 **Binding**  
by astolat

Dean pulled into the first Wal-Mart they passed, the kind of place that would let them pay for groceries and first-aid supplies and cheap clothes with a credit card and not look too close at their faces. He also came out with a pair of dogtag chains, and strung the charms onto them while Sam put the bags away in the back seat.

"You really think these things are going to do any good?" Sam asked quietly, when Dean handed one over to him. He was just holding it in his palm, staring down at it.

"Why the fuck would Bobby be wasting our time?" Dean said. "He's probably getting sick of us hauling demons into his place." He grabbed the chain, slung it over Sam's head and shoved the charm down the neck of his t-shirt before putting on his own.

No way had Bobby pulled out some pair of real mystical amulets from nowhere and handed them over like crackerjack prizes. Dean figured it was a placebo more than anything. But a placebo was worth something. Demons needed some kind of chink to get in, anger or misery or fear, like, say, the fear that you were going to turn evil and start killing people. If he could just get Sam convinced he was protected, maybe he would be.

Of course, it didn't help that the charms were fucking annoying, some kind of cheap silver with ragged edges, green tarnish filling in the shallow etched lines. Sam kept trying to ditch his all the rest of the day. "It itches," he said, rubbing at it through his shirt when Dean caught him at it.

"It _itches?_ " Dean said, shooting him a glare. "Are you kidding me? You know what else itches, the goddamn _gunshot wound_ in my shoulder you gave me because you got your ass possessed, that itches too."

Sam dropped his hand like the amulet was on fire. He didn't say anything for the rest of that stretch of road, four hundred miles across two states. Dean made damn sure not to rub his own chest. The thing was chafing like a motherfucker.

* * *

He woke up in the night gripping the charm tight in his fist, breathing hard. He didn't remember what he'd been dreaming. He didn't, he told himself, and tried to forget the weird feeling, like there were orders he should be following, like he'd just heard Dad's voice, in pain. The charm was warm in his hand; he was sweating, skin hot, stinging a little where the sweat had hit the chafed marks.

He rolled over to check and make sure, but it was okay: Sam was still in his own bed, asleep, curled on his side with his hands folded up against his chest, his mouth open and his face soft and blurry in the dark.

Dean lifted his head off the pillow again sometime early morning. "What're you doing?"

Sam paused with the chain halfway over his head. "Going to take a shower?"

"Leave it on," Dean said. "Damn thing can't protect you if you're not wearing it, and you know those fuckers can go through vents."

"Dean, you seriously believe—" Dean kept his game face on, and Sam stopped and shook his head. "Fine, whatever." He threw his shirt on the bed and kept the amulet on as he went into the bathroom. Later that day, in the car, he spent a while looking down at it, rubbing his thumb over the etched grooves. Dean called it a win.

They put another four hundred miles down that day. Sam went out after they parked and found an Army/Navy surplus and picked up a couple packs of smaller t-shirts for them both, which helped keep the charms from rubbing so much.

A couple more days of driving and they hit California, turned south. Two weeks to the day Sam had gone out for beer and disappeared, Dean pulled off the highway onto a scenic overlook near Big Sur, ocean roaring at them from the rocks, Pacific stretched out to the horizon line with the sun sparking on the water. They shoved sandwiches into their pockets, ignored the NO CLIMBING signs and scrambled over the railings and down the hillside to an empty scrap of beach, out of sight of the road and all their own.

They stripped and went swimming, naked except for the amulets scraping their chests, water cold blue and spectacular. Dean broke out through a wave, shaking water from his face, gasping, and stood up waist-deep in the sun feeling like he could breathe again. They came out and lay down on their jackets to dry off. Sam was looking out over the ocean, the lines of that weird tight look on his face he'd been wearing all week finally easing out.

Dean rotated his shoulder experimentally. It'd healed up so fast and clean he probably owed Jo some flowers and an apology. His phone was a lump somewhere near his kidney. He went for his flask instead, and took a slug. He nudged Sam's shoulder with it. "Thanks," Sam said, softly, and met his eyes while he took it.

"Just don't drink all of it," Dean said.

They passed it back and forth until the sun went down, and they put their clothes back on and went to sleep on the warm sand. Sam shifted around, middle of the night, and pillowed his head on Dean's thigh. It woke Dean up, but he didn't mind. The stars were clear, and it wasn't cold. He put his hand on Sam's chest, over the amulet, and felt his heart beating steady through the soft cheap cotton until it sent him back to sleep.

* * *

It was the best he'd slept in two weeks, so of course Sam had to go jerking awake at about six in the morning. "Dean—" Dean came awake groggily, batting Sam's hand away from his leg. "Come on, we have to go," Sam said.

"You saw something?" Dean said, sitting up and grabbing for his boots and his gun. "This about one of the other psychics?"

"I don't—know, I don't think so." Sam stood, brushing sand off his pants. He looked up. "It's weird, Dean, it felt different. It felt—I don't know, I think it's just a hunt. There were these kids going up into the mountains, they got lost at night, ran into a pack of these weird shaggy things, I didn't get a clear look—"

"So what, now you're having random visions?" Dean said. Sam just spread his hands, frustrated and helpless. "Okay, okay. We could use a hunt anyway. Let's go check it out."

Two hours driving in the early morning light put them in the mountains, and then they took three side roads until Sam spotted a road sign that looked familiar. "Hang on," Sam said. "Pull over first," and he dug their park ranger IDs out of the trunk along with their jackets. The girl scout troop getting ready at the trailhead put up a fuss when their hike was canceled on account of unsafe conditions, but Dean gave the troop leader his best smile and she said, "Okay, better safe than sorry, girls," and piled the kids back into the SUVs.

"So what's up there?" Dean said, popping the trunk again after they'd cleared the place out.

"I don't know exactly," Sam said, studying the trail. "There was some kind of roaring? Like mountain lions."

"Man, if your shining brought us up here for wildlife control, I'm going to be pissed," Dean said. "You figure maybe it's a pack of weres?" He started loading up a couple of clips with silver bullets anyway, just in case.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Sam said, taking the Heckler & Koch Dean held out to him and shoving it into his waistband.

Halfway up the trail scouting, Dean stopped. "You smell that?"

"Yeah," Sam said, and they pushed their way off the side of the trail, forcing through some of the brush until Dean spotted a hiking boot poking out under a bush.

"Hey," Dean said, kicking the sole, gun held ready. "Hey, you okay under—" and stopped as the foot rolled out, with the leg attached. Up to the knee, anyway.

"Ugh. Are those teeth marks?" Sam said, after Dean squatted down and nudged it over with a stick.

"Tasty," Dean said, getting up and tossing the stick away into the woods. "So what eats people and roars?"

"Check these tracks out," Sam said, parting some more of the bush. The prints looked like giant chicken-scratch, deep points at the tips where claws had dug into the dirt. "Lion-men, you think?"

"What, those Sumerian demon things?" Dean said. "What are they doing in California?"

"Snacking on hikers?" Sam was already flipping through dad's journal.

"Yeah, okay, nevermind," Dean agreed. "Is silver gonna do them?"

"Maybe, but I think we're going to need a little extra charge," Sam said. "When people built Sumerian temples, religious figures, they would draw conjurations with religious symbols, I think Dad has a few of them in here."

They spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the trunk, drawing cuneiform symbols on their bullets and blades with Sharpies. They didn't talk much; the sun was shining off the Impala's paint and chrome and hot on the back of Dean's neck, warming up the keyring chain, loosening up his muscles through the black t-shirt. Sam was bent intently over the bullets, doing them one after another, tiny little characters, his hair curling and a little damp right against his neck. It was quiet, air dusty-sweet with the smell of pollen. Back to normal, their kind of normal, and Dean had never been more glad of anything in his life. He finished the knives and took off his shirt, lay back with his eyes shut, rubbing his thumb over the amulet absently.

"Okay, that's two cartridges apiece," Sam said, and handed Dean his. The sun was going down. They put on their jackets and strapped on the blades. Dean got the water bottle out of the cooler and drank half, gave Sam the rest. Up along the trail, something roared, low and mean and grisly, and the adrenaline rush started to hit his veins, opening up his lungs to the cool night air.

"Let's hit it," Dean said, and they moved out on the trail.

The lion-things came at them out of the dark in a tightening ring, eyes glittering orange through their dirty white manes of hair, lips drawn back from mouths full of teeth, crouching low and tensed up to spring, their clawed hands flexing. The Beretta was heavy and cool in Dean's hands, silver knives slung at his hips, Sam like a wall at his back with their shoulders tight together, and the crazy fucked up thing was, Dean couldn't keep from grinning as he leveled the gun.

"We will feast on your flesh," the big one in the lead breathed out softly, thick red tongue licking out at the corners of his mouth. "We will gnaw on your bones."

"Yeah?" Dean said. "Come and get some, you sons of bitches," and fired the first shot.

The fight was short and fast and dirty, the way he liked them, and he was still grinning when the guns ran out. There was blood spattered on his face: three of the lion-men were dead. Sam was working a silver-plated machete behind him now, and yeah, this was going to go down just right.

Dean winked at the pack-leader circling around him. "So how's that midnight snack working out for you?" he said, and the thing snarled and jumped at him. Dean tucked and rolled under its leap, came up right in front of the other two, who'd been hanging back to watch, and took them both out with one knife to the throat apiece. Behind him, the pack-leader howled, choked and gargling, cut off quick: Sam had dropped to one knee and gutted him with a stroke.

"Sweet," Dean said. "Man, that was almost too easy." He rubbed his forehead off against his sleeve and stretched for the sky, twisting his shoulders back, still crackling with the charge and nowhere near spent. He walked over to where Sam was standing over the pack-leader's body, panting hard, blood dripping off his blade and his skin. Sam's head came up, his eyes bright enough to see them shine, even with the moon almost down. Dean grinned and wiped a spatter of blood off Sam's cheek with his thumb. It left streaks like war paint across Sam's face.

"Yeah, you've got some—" Sam said softly, whispering like there was anybody left to hear them, brushing his knuckles across Dean's jaw and up his cheek, blood smearing, and then his fingers uncurled and he was cupping Dean's head.

"Yeah," Dean said, vaguely, and pulled Sam's head down to his.

Sam kissed breathless and thorough, his big hands a cradle around Dean's face, working like he had all the time in the world, like he wasn't burning up the way Dean was, turning the knife on Sam's clothes, stripping him down to the skin he had to touch, had to lay his hands on. "Shh," Sam said, soft and gentle, still kissing him, suckling at his lip, tongue teasing in.

"Come on, come on," Dean muttered on his breath, pleading because no way in hell could he pull away from that, Sam's mouth on his working him slow, but there'd be time for slow later, for easy later; right now he was just too damn hungry. Sam grinned against his mouth, _okay okay_ , and went down with him to the ground, his jacket and his shirt under their knees. He got Dean's shirt out of his jeans and got it off over his head, threw it down on the ground too and shoved Dean flat, his hands on Dean's chest, spread wide and traveling over the planes of muscle.

Dean unbuckled his belt, heaving his ass up off the ground so he could shove his jeans down, and lay back and stretched for Sam's eyes eating him up, Sam's hands sliding down over his hips to his naked thighs, possessive, leaving red streaks all over his skin. All of a sudden Sam stood up again to get his own jeans off, his chest working in a double-quick rise and fall; yeah, he'd caught it now. When he came back down, Dean clenched a fist tight in his hair and pulled his head back, bit his neck, sucked the sweet hard lines of his tendons, and Sam went crazy wild over him, hips rolling forward, gunshot grip on Dean's ass.

Dean wanted to fuck so goddamn bad, wanted to lay Sam out and spread his legs and just go at it, take him deep and mark him up for good; or maybe open up and take it himself, watch Sam fuck him, watch Sam's hips snap forward and feel it all the way all down his spine. Sam moaned, shivering the skin of his throat under Dean's mouth, and they weren't in a million years going to make it there right now, but he was going to watch Sam come, anyway; he was going to see that, feel it under his hand.

Sam's cock pushed through his fist, slick and streaked up and hard, giving him what he wanted. "Yeah," Dean said, so hot it was a near thing he remembered how to breathe, "yeah, damn, that's good, baby, keep going." Sam braced himself on the ground and worked it, panting on Dean's mouth, and then he came in hot jerks all over Dean's chest.

"Oh, God," Sam said, crumpling down, "God, _Dean_ ," begging, and Dean pushed him off onto his back and straddled his hips. Two, three fast jerks and he was gone too, striping Sam shoulders to hips. Then he said, "Fuck, _ow_ , what the hell," as a pain shot through him hard, right over the breastbone, and he was naked under the moon, dripping blood and sweat and come, cooling demon corpses all around and Sam staring up at him, mouth open and horrified.

"No," Dean said. "No, no fucking way," like he could deny the last fifteen minutes right out of existence, except he remembered the whole thing. Every detail of it, wanting to do it, how fucking sweet it had been; like whatever piece of his brain that knew not to do that had been switched off and then right back on again, soon as it was done.

"Dean," Sam said, barely loud enough to hear, and Dean stood up fast to get off him. "What was that? What did—what did we—"

"The symbols," Dean said. "The Sumerian shit, those spells, maybe that—or something in their blood, who knows—"

Sam was sitting up, staring blankly at his own hands. He looked up at Dean, eyes freaked out and huge, and then his forehead furrowed and he stood up. "Dean, your—" His hand stopped an inch away from Dean's chest, hovering.

Dean looked down: the chain was hanging loose around his neck, the little silver loop that had held the amulet on dangling empty on the line. "It broke?" he said, and then he was grabbing his shirt off the ground and wiping away the slick of blood and everything else on his chest: the amulet was still there, embedded flat into the middle of his breastbone, like a silver bullet had plugged him right between the lungs.

* * *

"What the fuck are these things?" Dean said into the phone, first thing, no goddamn preamble. Bobby didn't say anything on the other end for a long time; a guilty time. "Goddamn you, Bobby, tell me!"

"What I told you," Bobby said finally. "They ward off possession, spells, evil influence."

"Yeah, except it comes with a big fucking catch, doesn't it?" Dean said. "What's the—ow, goddammit!" He put his hand up to his chest. His fingers came away stained red, just a trickle of blood welling up around the edges of the amulet that clotted up while he looked at it.

Sam came out of the bathroom. His shirt was off, and he was holding a white washcloth to his chest, bright red bloodstain soaking through. "It won't come out," he said, panic riding his voice. "I tried a knife. Dean, I think it's stuck to the _bone_ —"

He stopped, staring at the blood on Dean's fingers. Dean stared back while Sam slowly lifted the washcloth away from his own chest. The blood wasn't running anymore; Dean could see the cut closing up already. "Jesus, Bobby," he whispered. "What did you do to us?"

"I'm sorry, Dean," Bobby said, low and tiredly. "Had to be done."

"Had to be done?" Dean said. "You son of a bitch, what the fuck gives you the right—"

"Steve Wendell," Bobby snapped. "Steve Wendell dead, and what that demon did to Jo, and a promise to your daddy you know damn well you ain't going to keep." Dean clenched his jaw shut, and Bobby went on softer. "Wasn't fair of him to ask it of you, Dean. Wasn't fair of the world to ask it of him, either. But fair's got nothing to do with it when we're talking stakes like these."

He paused, sighed out. "I don't know exactly what those charms are. They came to me about ten years ago with a heap of warnings. But they'll keep that demon off your backs, whatever else they take out of you, and right now that's not negotiable."

"Yeah," Dean said, "I'll tell you what else isn't _negotiable_. We're getting these damn things off, and then I'm coming up there to shove them right back down your fucking throat."

Dean closed up the phone and stood up and chucked it hard across the room. It smacked against the wall and fell down in pieces, clattering. Dean braced his hands on his hips, his head bent. He could feel Sam behind him, knew to the last inch how much space he'd have to cross to get his hands on Sam's skin again.

"These things," Sam said, "it's like—I can feel—" He stopped.

"Yeah," Dean said, low and tight.

* * *

He lay awake all night, staring at the ceiling, knowing Sam was awake. It wasn't like before, on the mountain; his head was working again, he knew it was completely fucked, and it wasn't a compulsion. He just wanted it. Wanted it and knew Sam was over there wanting it too.

Finally Sam reached over and turned on the light. "Might as well get some research done," he said quietly.

"Yeah, all right," Dean said, sitting up and rubbing his face.

They took the laptop to an all-night internet cafe with wireless and coffee. His knee kept bumping up to Sam's under the micro-sized table and it gave him the good kind of shiver every time, his wiring gone so fucking wrong. Dean swallowed more coffee and locked his eyes on the screen, pretended he didn't hear Sam breathe out every time either.

They hunted up a couple of dozen references and went back up into the mountains to try them out. Dean drew a knife along his left arm and a thin line of blood sprang up on Sam's right, mirror image. They held them out next to each other and watched the cuts heal at the same pace. "Pain sharing," Sam said, clinical as if they weren't seeing their skin knit up like a movie on rewind.

"Maybe I shouldn't be complaining, but this could really suck, one of us takes a bad hit in the middle of a firefight," Dean said. "And what the hell happens if one of us buys it?"

"I think that's the whole idea," Sam said. Dean glanced up at the flat angry tightness of his voice. Sam was staring at the cuts, his face clenched up. "If I go darkside—"

"What, they'll just—"

"Hunt you instead of me," Sam said.

He got up and walked away from the car, into the dark. Dean would've gone after him, but he didn't need to: even after the crackle of breaking twigs and leaves faded away, he could still feel Sam out there, a small bright spot like the tug on a compass needle. When he put his fingers on the amulet in his chest, it was like Sam was right there next to him. "You need me to come out there and hold you while you cry or something?" he said, and Sam's prickly annoyed _fuck you_ came back loud and clear. "Yeah, well, come back before you break an ankle or something, this isn't helping."

More ways than one, because how much did he fucking love the idea that he couldn't ever lose Sam again? Sam came out of the woods and raised eyebrows at him. Dean looked away. Yeah, he had issues, whatever. He'd earned them. "So what else is this thing going to do for us?"

The list of possibles included a whole bunch of good and bad. They hadn't gotten the night vision, too bad, but on the other hand they also hadn't gotten the slit pupils, which would've been a little tricky to explain unless they went Blues Brothers 24/7. "Setting things on fire with our eyes?" Dean said, and they spent ten minutes staring really hard at sticks before they regretfully gave up on that one.

"Okay, the Norse and Roman binding spells and that weird Mayan ritual one are all supposed to be for warriors, make you a better fighter," Sam said. "If it's like one of those—"

"Come on, let's go a few rounds, try it out," Dean said, sliding down off the hood, beckoning Sam towards him, jumping around a little to loosen up.

"Dude, think about it," Sam said. "I don't want to punch myself in the head."

"Don't be such a wuss," Dean said, and Sam rolled his eyes and snapped a crescent kick straight from the waist, and for fifteen minutes it was nothing but the coolest thing in the whole damn world, both of them pulling moves like something out of the Matrix. Neither of them got in a single hit the other one didn't counter, because apparently the weird psychic connection thing worked on this too, but Dean didn't even care. "This is fucking _awesome_ ," he panted, breaking off. "Check this out, I bet I can do that Crouching Tiger thing," and he managed to jump between one tree trunk to another three times before he slipped and crashed into the ground shoulder-first.

"Ow, fuck!" Sam said, and kicked his foot. "They had _wires_. Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean said happily from the ground. It hadn't hurt that much.

Sam reached down and pulled him up, and Dean swayed into him coming up, catching himself against Sam's arms. Sam didn't do anything, but he lit up with _want_ like a neon sign, and they both said, "Fuck," at the same time, and backed off.

"Okay," Dean said, running a hand over his face, pretending his voice wasn't doing that crap shaking thing. "Okay. What else have we got?"

* * *

"So here's the good news," Sam said back in the cafe, closing up the laptop. "I think I've tracked it down. The symbols from the amulets are Egyptian. They were used in a bunch of religious rituals, carved onto temple walls, that kind of thing."

Dean nodded. "Find any copies?"

"Yeah, well, that's the bad news," Sam said. "That carved onto temple walls thing?"

"Dude, tell me we don't have to get to _Egypt_ ," Dean said.

"No," Sam said. "We have to get to New York."

"Great," Dean muttered, and stabbed his cheese fries with his fork.

"Maybe we should fly," Sam said, awkwardly.

"No way," Dean said.

"A week in the car," Sam said.

"You think I'm going to make it six hours in a plane without grabbing your ass for distraction?" Dean said.

"Dude, I'm not having sex in an airplane bathroom no matter what you do," Sam said.

"Screw the _bathroom_ ," Dean said. "I'd go down on you in the seat."

It slid right out of his mouth without him even thinking about it, just another crack slotting into their back-and-forth rhythm, and then he and Sam were both red and staring down at their plates.

"We're just going to keep driving," Dean said, slicing his hand flat through the air, not looking up at Sam's face. "Twelve hours each, passenger's sleeping while the driver goes. We'll make it in two days."

"Yeah, this is a great plan," Sam muttered, and chugged the rest of his beer.

They got halfway through New Mexico before they hit a traffic jam outside Albuquerque and Dean woke up. They were crawling at two miles per with the windows cranked down for air, and a LeBaron convertible edged up alongside, five hot girls crammed in, Latin skin and dark eyes and sexy little outfits that made Dean's mouth water with good old-fashioned lust, and he almost wanted to cry with relief. He grinned at the driver, joyfully, and she grinned back across the lanes, blushing a little, and called over, "Where are you guys going?"

"New York," Dean called back.

"Are you serious?" the girls yelled, and twenty minutes later they were following the convertible off the highway to a funky hole of a Mexican place with the best damn green chile sauce Dean had ever tasted and non-stop salsa music on the radio. Juanita pulled him out onto the empty dance floor, and he locked her up to his hips with a hand in the small of her back, icy bottle of Corona in his other hand and Sam watching from the table, slouched down low to ease his legs apart, so turned-on sweat was rolling down Dean's back in sympathy.

She gasped and shivered against him, her hands curling around his neck; he was hard, and she was rocking her hips up into it. Maybe she'd let him get her out back somewhere, slide those tight jeans down and taste her. Maybe she'd let Sam take her from behind while Dean licked her, Sam's cock sliding over his tongue going into her pussy, her clit throbbing each time Sam fucked into her, and afterwards he could fuck her while she was still wet from Sam. He was shaking, so damn hot he was ready to go for it, lean over and whisper, and then she slid her hands down from his shoulders to brace against his chest and said, a little wobbly and nervous, "The music's a little fast for me, I think?"

They said goodbye to the girls, and Dean peeled the car out at a hundred miles an hour, Sam staring blindly out the window.

* * *

Dean made it another eight hours before his eyes started to blur and the rumble strips on the side of the road jerked him back into lane twice. Sam hadn't slept except in fits and starts, mostly staring out the window. He'd offered to take the wheel a couple of times; Dean had said no, his hands gripping tight, and that was all they'd said. Sam straightened up and looked over the third time the car shuddered over the shoulder, and this time he didn't offer to take over. Dean could feel the thick cloudy tightness around his temples, and the Oklahoma City traffic was coming up.

"Yeah," Dean said, giving up, and took the next exit for the Western Sands Motel in El Reno. Sam went in to get the room, and Dean let his head fall back against the seat, putting his fingers on his eyelids to equalize the pressure inside and out, twenty-five hours on the road pulsing in his skull.

The trunk slammed, and Sam opened his door. "Come on," he said, and took them down along the motel walkway and pressed a key into Dean's hand.

Dean just stood watching Sam open the room next door, too zoned out to get it for a minute, and then he understood and felt a _no_ so hard that Sam jerked and stopped before he'd even said it out loud. They put their bags on the floor in the first room and Sam took the second key back to the front desk. Dean crawled onto the bed without even taking off his boots and was mostly under by the time Sam got back. The bed creaked as Sam climbed on with him.

They slept ten hours straight. Dean woke up already hard. Sam rolled over and pressed him into the bed with those slow, deep kisses, and Dean didn't hurry him along this time. It helped the curtains were pulled, dim orange light with only a couple of thin white lines of sunshine pin-striped across the room, and Dean could let everything past Sam's shoulders blur off the map. Sam's weight was heavy on his legs, their hips pressed together in ways he wasn't thinking about, his hand cradling Dean's head and his other arm curled under Dean's shoulder.

"Dean," Sam murmured, gravel under tires. His hands were warm. His mouth pressed over the corner of Dean's mouth, tongue licking inside, wet and slick. His fingers were on Dean's jaw, gently holding him in place, letting him get used to this; except he didn't even have to. It was familiar as the open road, the wheel under his hands, knowing exactly where he was going and everything important right there with him.

"Yeah," Dean said unevenly. "Yeah, Sammy," cheap denim and rough seams under his hands, tight on Sam's hips, while they rocked into each other slow and easy until the maid banged on the door and cracked the shell around them.

They hadn't unpacked, so they grabbed their bags and went straight for the car, hunger going like a ping-pong ball from one of them to the other, and they got maybe ten miles down the road before Sam said calmly, "Okay, fuck this. Pull over," and Dean got sucked off on the shoulder with his back against the car door, his hands tight in Sam's hair, his hips rocking into Sam's wide, generous mouth as deep as Sam could comfortably take it, Sam's hand shoved down between his own legs working, and Dean could feel that too, when Sam groaned on him and came.

"I'm going to fucking shoot Bobby in the head," Dean said, slumped down flat and staring up at the roof of the car, his leg hanging limply off the seat. Sam was opening the door on his side to rinse his mouth out and spit.

Sam sat back and pulled the door shut with a bang. They sat not saying anything, staring out the windshield. The worst part was how uncomplicatedly good Dean felt, and not just his humming, satisfied body. He _wanted_ to be freaked out, sickened, and instead this kind of stupid irrational happiness kept bubbling up in him. "This is the most fucked up thing that has ever happened to us," Dean muttered finally, cranking the ignition back on.

Sam's was voice trembling a little, like he was fighting down that same insane wanting to _laugh_. "There was that time you got turned into—"

"We swore we'd never talk about that again, you asshole," Dean said, giving him a shove, and peeled out onto the highway.

* * *

They stopped for dinner just the other side of St. Louis, a truck stop diner tacked on to a motel. Dean wiped up gravy with his thumb and licked it off, Sam looked up, and they barely made it to the room; Dean kicked the door shut and got fucked for the first time ever right there, his legs wrapped around Sam's waist and his hands braced on either side of the door frame, Sam lifting him into the fucking air with every thrust, and he took it all, rode it out, loved every second of it.

Afterwards Sam turned and staggered three steps slowly and carefully to tip them over onto the bed, and his dick slid the last little way out. Dean threw an arm up over his face while Sam pulled the sheets out from under him and got them under the covers. They hadn't even gotten the lights on. Dean would freak out like high heaven about this in the morning, just the way it deserved, he swore he would; but right now he slung his arm around Sam's neck and tugged him close, still panting, feeling as awesome as he could ever remember.

In the morning, Sam was asleep on his stomach, sheets puddled down over his thighs and leaving his bare muscled back and ass uncovered. And, okay, Dean was only human, so he smacked Sam one with his open palm. Sam woke up right in time to feel it. "You're such a jerk," he said, pushed up on his elbows and glaring, except—

"Hey," Dean said, grinning. "Something you want to talk to me about, Sammy?"

"Fuck you so much," Sam muttered, getting all pink and embarrassed, and Dean shoved him back down and smacked him a couple more times, and then he went a little nuts maybe. At some point he was licking sweat out of the hollow at the base of Sam's spine, and then he was biting Sam's ass and spreading him open. Sam made this hilarious noise like a seal or something and tried to squirm away, except he was loving it too, and he went flat and shivering while Dean licked him.

The bottle of motel hand lotion had gone somewhere; Dean managed to find it on the floor in their clothes, half squeezed out, and he slicked up and went to town. He draped himself over Sam's back and fucked slowly into him, short little thrusts until he got all the way in and Sam sighed out and went kind of soft and relaxed under him.

"Christ, this is so sick," Dean said, bracing his legs outside Sam's and pulling Sam's hips up so he could fuck him harder.

"Yeah," Sam said muffled, head buried in his arms, ashamed and glad under him. "Yeah, oh God, Dean, please."

* * *

It took them two more weeks to travel the last nine hundred miles, going by way of half the ugly motel rooms in between, a dozen rest stops, and one memorable day in a state park in Indiana, where they fucked on a picnic bench and nearly got caught by park rangers and had to grab their clothes and run into the woods to hide.

The _Weekly World News_ reported a sighting of the Loveland Frog-Men the day before they finally made it across the border into Ohio, so they took a detour south for a couple of days to check it out. They found out the eyewitness was a fake with fifteen minutes of checking in the phone book, and spent the rest of the time in the Little Miami Bed  & Breakfast, where Sam spread Dean out on the worn-thin sheets in the attic room and spent three hours giving him a blowjob that was more like a full-body experience, kisses on his thighs and his ankles, teeth on his nipples, Sam meditatively and slowly licking the head of his cock over and over until Dean was practically sobbing, he was so ready.

"Dude, how did you go a freaking year without getting laid?" Dean said, gasping, while Sam turned him inside out, thumb pushing slowly in and out of him.

Sam just gave him a smirk Dean would've considered it his sacred obligation to wipe off, under other circumstances, but at the moment it was kind of hard to focus on anything, because Sam was going down on him _finally_ , and Jesus, it was good.

Traffic going into New York City was a bitch and a half as always, complete with the fun of driving around for an hour after they got through the tunnel, until they managed to squeeze the Impala into street parking. "I don't like leaving her out here," Dean said restlessly, rubbing her fin. The Ford Taurus on the left had a stump where the driver's-side mirror should've been; the green SUV behind them had three long pale scratches running in parallel.

"We'll probably be back in a couple of hours," Sam said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "This might be a total washout, Dean, I couldn't find enough of the inscription online to really know."

"Yeah, okay," Dean said, and they caught the subway uptown to the museum.

He tensed up as soon as they went into the Egyptian section. It just felt weird to have all these tombs and sarcophagi and dead bodies lying around in bright light with a thousand people wandering around and talking; he kept feeling like they'd been caught in a graveyard. Naturally, Sam kept stopping to read the inscriptions on the cases.

"You like the little dolls, Sammy?" Dean said, after Sam had spent five minutes staring at a setup like a giant toy canoe with little clay figures lined up on it. "Come on, I'll buy you some G.I. Joes."

Sam rolled his eyes. "You're pathetic, you know that? You're dissing stuff that's five thousand years old."

"Then it's got to be pretty crap by now," Dean said. "Let's check out the temple and get out of here, seriously."

He did have to admit that the Temple of Dendur was pretty cool standing alone in its big room, even aside from the whole potential saving their sanity thing. They walked around it slow, until Sam stopped about halfway around the back, staring at one of the inscriptions. He didn't say anything until Dean nudged him. "Well?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "Yeah, I think this is it."

"Does it tell you how to get these things off us?"

"I can't read hieroglyphics off the top of my head," Sam said. He shrugged off his knapsack and pulled out a notebook and a couple of books and sat down on the floor. "It's going to take me a while to translate this."

"Great," Dean said, and lay down on the floor next to him. Sam's pen scratched away. Pages turned. It was loads of fun. After about ten minutes, Dean started putting together a really hot fantasy in his head, Sam flat on his back with Angelina Jolie riding him, while Dean got to backdoor her and do the reach-around, thumb on her clit and fingers around her pussy, Sam's cock sliding in and out.

"Goddammit, Dean," Sam hissed, shifting his books around to cover his hard-on, and Dean grinned.

"So how's that translation going?" he said, poking Sam's leg with his elbow, thinking about how he'd like to just shove Sam flat on the ground, slip his jeans down off his hips, get his mouth on Sam's dick, see if he could get it all the way down this time—

"Seriously, do you want these off or not?" Sam said, shoving his elbow away, and then he went still.

For a moment it seemed like everything stopped, quiet spreading out around them like ripples in water, the sound of conversations and footsteps dying away. The inscription on the wall was glowing. The amulet in Dean's chest felt warm, and for some reason he was pretty sure if he reached up under his shirt, he'd be able to pull it away from the skin. If he did it now, right now, in the _or forever hold your peace_ way, and it would just come away in his hand.

Sam's head was bent, and his shoulders were hunched forward, like he felt it too. His hands were clenched white on the notebook, and he didn't move.

Dean swallowed. "Screw it," he said. "You want to go get some dim sum?"

= End =

  
  
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